College students have the unique privilege and ability to make their voices heard louder than the average citizen. Student protests have been known to have a conceivable impact on changing the way things are run, from the Czech Republic to Kent State. The students at the University of California Irvine have the same right to free speech and peaceful protest as we do – if only they’d wield that power properly.

Earlier this month, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren attempted to give a lecture at UC Irvine, only to be rudely and consistently interrupted by protesters yelling “killer!” and “death to Zionists!” during his speech.

The perpetrators of this ridiculous showing were a number of Muslim students belonging to the UCI Muslim Student Union, and a number of non-affiliated individuals, all of whom seem to completely misunderstand the meaning of the term “free speech.”

Regardless of who is speaking and what opinions they are propagating, interrupting and screaming unintelligibly just because you are of a differing opinion is prohibitive. By not allowing Oren to express his views, the protestors were limiting his speech, limiting his right to address an otherwise captive audience, and acting in a way that is unconstitutional in this country – and 12 of them were rightly arrested.

In this situation, it doesn’t matter if Israel committed war crimes or if Hamas is a terrorist organization or not. It doesn’t matter whose side you’re on in this most complicated of messes. What matters is that we should all be on the same side as far as liberty is concerned. Michael Oren deserved a chance to speak and the people who came to hear him deserved to be able to listen. And just the same, anyone who disagreed had the right to protest his presence on campus, which the Muslim Student Union said they “strongly condemned,” but that protest should have been held peacefully outside and not in a manner that infringed on anyone else’s right to speech.

If the students from the Muslim Student Union had acted in a way that was in accordance with accepted methods of protest, perhaps Michael Oren could have gone back to Washington with a positive, better-informed view of how many students on that campus (and innumerable others) view Israel’s policy in Gaza and the U.S.’s policy toward Israel. Maybe a real dialogue could have been started by students who want to be heard and whose views are valid.

Instead, all we hear are the sounds of insult and injury.

All we can hope is that if Ambassador Oren came to Suffolk, students here would behave in a more responsible and dignified way.